Cheaper tyres from China is worrying the tyre industry
According to the news, passenger car tyre import have gone up to 14 lakh units, this is significant up by nearly 24% over the previous quarter.
“The availability of cheap Chinese tyres is a matter of serious concern. This is more so in the commercial taxi segment where consumers have switched brands. Chinese car tyres have taken nearly 20% of market share in some sizes,” said Vikram Malhotra, VP, marketing and sales, JK Tyres.
The radial tyre segment too has been affected. The price difference is as much as 20% for truck and bus radials and 30% to 35% for car radials. Almost 60% of the tyres are coming from China.
The industry has been consistently pointing out this anomaly of higher duty for raw materials and lower one for finished products.
“Even after rupee depreciation, buyers and sellers have been re-negotiating the prices but the quantity of imports has not been affected much,” pointed out Vinod Simon, president of All India Rubber Industries Association.
According to report in 2008, India is largest importer of cheap Chinese tyres. An industry expert claimed that even though prices of Indian tyres cannot be lowered, the technology and quality of domestic tyre products are better than the Chinese tyres. “Even though the consumer is aware about quality issues of Chinese tyres, there will always be a demand for such tyres because of cost advantage.”
The domestic tyre market consists of leading players like MRF followed by Apollo, Bridgestone, Ceat, JK Tyres, Michelin, Goodyear, among others.